Transforming collective knowledge into team intelligence: the role of collective teaching

The purpose of this study is to explore the pivotal role that collective teaching plays in knowledge transfer between new product development teams. This study develops a theoretical model of collective teaching, where team intelligence is its consequence and learning orientation cognitive skills are moderators.

Based on a questionnaire survey of 156 pairs of new product development project teams of information technology firms, the authors used partial least squares to test the study’s hypotheses.

The findings reveal that the use of collective teaching is positively related to team intelligence of recipient teams. In addition, T-shaped skills of source teams exert positive moderating influence on this relationship and so does a learning orientation of recipient teams.

First, the sample firms used in the study are from the IT industry, which is characterized by extremely short product life cycles, thereby limiting the generalizability of the study’s findings. Second, the authors did not examine whether the effect of T-shaped skills is different at various NPD stages; the contributions of each functional expertise may vary depending on the NPD stage (e.g. the idea generation or pre-launch stage). Third, the use of cross-sectional design precludes a causal inference. The role of focal constructs and moderators and their consequent effects would benefit from more stringent, longitudinal research. Finally, the authors controlled for only a limited set of factors of team intelligence because other potential antecedents of this variable still await identification by future studies.

This study suggests that the implementation of collective teaching can enhance the capacity of a project team as a whole to manage and innovate information, namely, team intelligence. The study’s findings also suggest that the management must recognize the significance of teams’ learning orientation and thereby proactively develop teams’ learning culture by redesigning work, reward systems or performance evaluation to promote learning. Additionally, it is prudent for managers to reconsider their recruitment criteria to incorporate T-shaped skills.

This study represents the first step in developing an empirically grounded framework linking collective teaching with team intelligence. Additionally, the authors confirm that team intelligence is a four-dimensional construct.